Via MTV with a H/T to BBTF -

The New York Yankees are nine innings away from winning the World Series. If everything goes according to the Yanks’ plan on Wednesday night (November 4), Mariano Rivera will take the mound for the final handful of outs, leading the team to its first championship since 2000 and further cementing his reputation as the greatest closer in baseball history.

Rivera will have an unlikely fan pulling for him, one who’s become a pop superstar with a record-breaking four #1 singles off her debut album but who continues to see something of herself in the future Hall of Famer: New Yorker Lady Gaga. She’s a lifelong fan whose family bleeds Yankee pinstripes. As she told MTV News, Gaga believes her approach to pumping out hit song after hit song and outrageous performance after outrageous performance is not unlike Rivera’s approach to closing out a tight game.

“I’ve actually been making a lot of Yankee analogies in my interviews lately because I get asked, ‘Do you feel pressure? How do you feel when someone says this? Or do you feel like you have to top yourself?’ ” she explained. “I say I do feel like I have to top myself. But I feel like I’m Rivera. I’m a closer.”

Is it time for Mariano to ditch his usual entrance music, Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” and rush onto the field under the blaring electropop of “Poker Face”?

I believe we’ve found Ronan Tynan’s replacement…